ressing effect on the spirit of the country than all
the victories and menaces of Napoleon in the heyday of his wild career.
At home and abroad, there seemed nothing to sustain the national spirit;
financial embarrassment, commercial and manufacturing distress, social
and political agitation on the one hand, and on the other, the loss
of armies, of reputation, perhaps of empire. It was true that these
external misfortunes could hardly be attributed to the new ministry--but
when a nation is thoroughly perplexed and dispirited, it soon ceases
to make distinctions between political parties. The country is out of
sorts, and the "government" is held answerable for the disorder.

Thus it will be seen, that, though the new ministry were supported by a
commanding majority in parliament, and that, too, after a recent appeal
to the country, they were not popular, it may be truly said they were
even the reverse. The opposition, on the other hand, notwithstanding
their discomfiture, and, on some subjects, their disgrace, were by no
means disheartened, and believed that there were economical causes at
work, which must soon restore them to power.

The minister brought forward his revision of the tariff, which was
denounced by the League as futile, and in which anathema the opposition
soon found it convenient to agree. Had the minister included in his
measure that "total and immediate repeal" of the existing corn laws
which was preached by many as a panacea, the effect would have been
probably much the same. No doubt a tariff may aggravate, or may
mitigate, such a condition of commercial depression as periodically
visits a state of society like that of England, but it does not produce
it. It was produced in 1842, as it had been produced at the present
time, by an abuse of capital and credit, and by a degree of production
which the wants of the world have not warranted.

And yet all this time, there were certain influences at work in
the great body of the nation, neither foreseen, nor for some time
recognised, by statesmen and those great capitalists on whose opinion
statesmen much depend, which were stirring, as it were, like the
unconscious power of the forces of nature, and which were destined to
baffle all the calculations of persons in authority and the leading
spirits of all parties, strengthen a perplexed administration, confound
a sanguine opposition, render all the rhetoric, statistics, and
subscriptions of the Anti-Corn Law